Statement by the New Portland Foundation on Newberg’s school board decision terminating their superintendent

By a slim majority, the Newberg School Board recently made the difficult decision to terminate their veteran educator and district superintendent Joe Morelock.  Earlier this month, the Newberg Education Association, speaking for a majority of Newberg’s unionized teachers, made its own difficult decision to file suit alleging that the school board’s policy prohibiting educators’ from expressing support for societally or politically divisive issues, violates both Oregon’s and the United States’ constitutional provisions protecting Freedom of Speech.

All of this official and communal discord among so many Newberg neighbors, are the result of Superintendent Morelock’s difficult decision permitting district’s staff and students to display symbols of support for Black Lives Matter and for LGBTQ pride, among other social movements currently debated in Newberg, Oregon.

New Portland Foundation’s intergenerational, interethnic, and interfaith board of directors – as believers in our Pacific Northwest values of constantly building and stewarding more inclusive communities – supports all forms of open debate and decision-making on our region’s most difficult public policy issues.

As believers in American democracy, New Portland Foundation supports every urban and rural community’s sometimes painful, often joyful, democratic processes for securing public policies representative of their families’ values. As participants in our nation’s belief in the rule of law, our board of directors has faith in our states’ and our federal courts ever-evolving last word on the constitutionality of what values teachers and students may express in our schools.